My prediction of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament bracket, coupled with sporadic observations about Notre Dame basketball and college basketball in general.
Constructive criticism is welcome, and in fact encouraged. I will attempt to defend my remarks, but I will consider all comments that come my way.

Monday, January 25, 2010

I'm tempted not to post this, since there are several glaring flaws. However, I've spent the majority of the past 4 hours on it, plus more time during the day on the Sunday. Its 6:30 AM - I think I'll just post it, and laugh at how ridiculous it it is later.

Disclaimer: This does not reflect where teams are now, but where I believe they will be at the end of this year.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

So - there are two ways of doing this. I can list every game that slightly matters; or I can list the ones that REALLY matter.

Syracuse @ West Virginia - The winner of this game puts themselves in the driver's seat for a one seed.

Wisconsin @ Ohio St. - Wiscy has some great wins at the Kohl Center - but one on the road would go a long way in pushing them up the seed list.

Dayton @ Xavier - I doubt this one has even touched your radar, but Xavier, perennial A-10 powerhouse, is in critical condition. Consider this - their best win is Cincinnati. St. John's has a win against Cincinnati, and another against Temple, to boot. Point is - Xavier needs this badly.

Purdue @ Northwestern - As mentioned previously, Northwestern's last shot to get a home win against an elite team. If they don't pick this up, their odds of making the tournament become fairly long.

Cal @ Washington - For control of the Pac-10... whatever thats worth.

ALL ACC GAMES - See previous post - that league is a free-for-all right nowRead more!

Friday, January 15, 2010

Obviously, I didn't have a post Monday setting up this week's games, but whatever. I've decided that I'm just going to mention 5 major storylines or games from the past four days:

5. Oklahoma defeats Oklahoma St.You can shout "rivalry game" at me all you want - if you are a tournament team, you should NOT be losing to Oklahoma this year. The Sooners have been pretty bad all year. So, if you're Oklahoma State, and you've got nothing going for you except the fact that your losses aren't too bad, and they haven't piled up too much... well, you just don't want to lose here.4. Wisconsin over NorthwesternIt seems like Northwestern, sitting at 12-4, is in decent shape for a tournament bid. But a deeper look shows that their best win is Notre Dame on a somewhat neutral court. They really need to beat one of the elite Big Ten teams to feel safe come selection Sunday. Out of the four (I'm still on the fence on Minnesota), this makes the second they've lost to at home. Not being able to win at home says bad things about their chances of winning those games on the road. Moreover, they don't get to play OSU at home - so their last chance at an elite at home is tomorrow.

3. Pitt defeats Connecticut; Clemson defeats UNCThere are a couple of reasons why these games are important. First, you have two teams that have been overrated throughout the season, finally getting their comeuppance. Clemson's beatdown showed that the previously exposed Tarheel flaws were actually somewhat serious, while yet another loss means that the best Huskie win is either William and Mary, Harvard, Notre Dame, or Seton Hall. On another level, who are these victors? This isn't the Pitt that fell pathetically to the Hoosiers, or the Tigers that needed a flubbed inbounds play to beat South Carolina State! Those two are better than I expected - I wonder how high their ceiling is.

2. Virginia over Georgia Tech; Va Tech over Miami (FL); NC State over Florida St.

What has caused a doomsday two-bid scenario in the Pac-10 is a cause for celebration in the ACC. The three bottom teams in league defeat three teams near the top - but since the three losing teams have some semblance of legitimacy, the ACC is in a situation where ALL teams - even the bumbling Wolfpack - still have a good shot at earning a bid.

1. Kentucky wallops Florida in Gainesville

This was Kentucky's best shot at losing for the rest of the year. Sure, they'll probably drop a game somewhere. But I doubt they'll lose more than one. Winning this one shows that they're in good shape for a one seed.

Other Notable Results:Radford over Coastal CarolinaOhio State over Purdue in W. LafayetteVillanova defeats LouisvilleRead more!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

I suppose I'm a little slow getting to the game this year. I mean, its already the conference season. The year is already about 1/3 over. Any potential readers that I gained last year are long gone. So what am I doing here?

To be honest, I was not planning on restarting this site. Despite my 65/65 effort of last year, the amount of time spent working on this site had an adverse effect on my school work. I had overcommitted myself, and needed to get rid of something. Moreover, I had been able to watch so few games last year, that I was having to rely almost entirely on statistics to inform my decisions. Again, what am I doing here?

Despite my resolution to get away from college basketball, I couldn't. When ESPN did their 24 hours of basketball, I found myself watching UCLA fall to CSU-Fullerton, and then watching the St. Mary's game. I fell asleep at the television for the Northern Colorado game. As the season progressed, I found myself watching more and more games. Over the Christmas holiday, I began to wonder how likely my beloved Irish were to make the tournament (unlikely). I began to scrutinize the cases of the various teams. I became hooked again. With the amount of time I was putting in for my personal knowledge, the time doing spent doing analysis would not add that much more time.

So how will this work? Sunday will be the day for the new seed lists - probably after the Sunday games are over, but earlier if I feel that they won't have a major impact. I'll mention the surprise or big games. If I have time, I'll talk about the hardest seeding decisions I had to make that day. Monday I will list the projected impact games for the next Monday through Friday period. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I'm not sure how much time I'll have, but will be more focused on individual teams rather than the big picture. The blog may or may not get updated those days. Friday will be a review of the past week, and a preview of the weekend ahead. Saturday will depend on whether I'm busy on that day or not.

Additionally, some of my friends and I have begun to make plans for a combined college basketball analysis site. We still haven't worked out the details, so I'll let you know how that goes.Read more!

About Me

I'm a huge sports nut, despite not being able to do well at any sport. I follow college basketball quite closely, and feel that I know enough to put out my thoughts.
Please note that my seeding philosophy is to act as if the season were ending today. I don't care if the team has wins that should bolster their resume in a few weeks - those games are not sure things, and thus should not be considered while creating a seed list.